"Roscosmos [State Space Corporation] did not conceal the problems exposed at one of the sector’s enterprises, at the Voronezh Mechanical Plant where second-and third-stage engines for the carrier rocket had to be recalled over gross violations," the vice-premier said.

"The reliability was confirmed by the actual launch of the space vehicle but this does not mean that attention to the work of the Voronezh facility of rocket engine-making will be lowered now," Rogozin said.

The Russian government will continue paying attention to the Voronezh Mechanical Plant’s work, said the vice-premier who oversees the domestic space industry in the Russian government.

"We’ll see to it that the quality and the culture of production raised thanks to collective efforts will not be lowered in any case," Rogozin said.

As the Russian deputy prime minister said, the Voronezh Mechanical Plant took tough personnel decisions and enhanced quality control measures.

"In order to prevent further accidents, the enterprise had to pass this period by shifting the schedules of payload launches actually to the third quarter of this year and now this work has restarted. I believe that this is an important event," Rogozin said, noting that it confirmed the successful completion of maintenance works on such sensitive equipment and hardware as carrier rocket engines.

A Russian Proton-M carrier rocket delivered a US Echostar-21 telecoms satellite together with the Briz-M upper stage into a support orbit earlier on Thursday, Roscosmos told TASS. This is the first launch of the Proton carrier rocket this year.

The previous launch of the Proton carrier rocket took place on June 9, 2016 when an Inltesat-31 satellite was put into orbit. After that, an Echostar-21 satellite was expected to be launched but the launch was numerously delayed and then put off for a long time over a defect found in the engines of Proton carrier rockets’ second and third stages. As was reported, a more expensive solder failing to meet the requirements specification was used by the factory as part of the engine production.